


Cut The Line

by LananiA3O



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Bruce is still learning how to be a dad, Dick Grayson as Robin, Father Son Bonding, Gen, Good Batdad™, Hurt/Comfort, Nightmares, PTSD, References to Canonical Character Death, but he's doing his best, discussion of death and guilt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-08
Updated: 2017-11-08
Packaged: 2019-01-30 23:44:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12663891
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LananiA3O/pseuds/LananiA3O
Summary: Thirteen-year-old Dick has been displaying a strange lack of noise, enthusiasm and appetite for almost a week, and so Bruce decides to investigate. However, the answers cut deep and they open old wounds. For both of them.





	Cut The Line

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by this panel:  
> http://lananiscorner.tumblr.com/post/167230910328/rozerozenlove-wow-just-remember-dicks-parents
> 
> Also, proof that Jason is not the only one who gets whumped in my fics. I have enough trauma headcanons to go around for everyone!
> 
> For status updates, writing trivia, fandom/fanfiction/writing related questions and occasional random ramblings, please visit my tumblr: http://lananiscorner.tumblr.com/

It had started the night the Batmobile had gone up in flames, the night they had failed to take down the plane Joker and the other criminals had commandeered. He could not exactly pin-point the hour, but Bruce knew that it had been that night when Robin had started acting… differently.

His first indication that something was wrong had been the silence. Dick Grayson was many things, but like most thirteen-year-old boys, one thing he was definitely not was ‘quiet’. As a matter of fact, Dick loved noise, whether it be music, laughter, chatter, or just… noise, and he loved it to such a degree that Bruce had seriously considered investing in a pair of military-strength ear plugs, like the ones used by explosive ordinance removal units, for the first three months that Dick had been in the manor. The house had been filled with sound ever since – Dick’s running, prancing, vaulting footsteps, Dick’s laughter, Dick talking, laughing, crying, howling… Bruce doubted anything short of a muzzle could keep the boy quiet.

A muzzle and whatever had happened to him during that mission.

At first, Bruce hadn’t noticed the strange new subdued volume of sounds. He had been too busy with the case… tracking that plane, working out what Joker wanted, whom he wanted, how he would get to them, and how Batman could stop him. Then there had been the _other_ guy to deal with, technically friendly, but an exercise in cooperation that made forcing Dick to sit still for thirty minutes look like child’s play.

That was the second thing that had tipped him off. Dick loved to move. Run, jump, crawl, slide, swing, vault, cartwheel, somersault… Bruce had to admit that the boy’s agility was both wondrous and frightening to behold. He was sure he could learn a trick or two from Dick. He was also sure the boy was going to break his neck someday. Bruises, cuts, and sprained wrists and ankles hadn’t stopped him so far, and Bruce was perfectly content to leave it at that. He didn’t want to imagine what things would be like if he suffered worse.

Yet for all his enthusiasm, Dick had been strangely _sluggish_ on the way home and ever-since. ‘Sluggish’ wasn’t quite the right word, Bruce knew. Dick was still fast and agile when he wanted to, but that was where the problem was. When he wanted to. Before, even his normal walking gait had had a light skip to it. Sitting him down for thirty minutes straight? An exercise. Confining him to his bed? A tribulation. Yet Dick had seemed sapped of all energy for the last week, shuffling from A to B, from bed to kitchen and kitchen to school and school to the cave and the cave to patrol with an automated sense of duty that did not bode well.

Patrol had been the third warning. True, Dick was still paying attention. He was still a good partner in crime-fighting, but a strange spark of hesitation had crept into his movements, especially when traversing Gotham’s skyline. What had used to be Dick’s favorite part of the job had suddenly become a chore, or at least so it seemed. For the first time since Bruce had seen the boy, he looked before he leaped. Two days ago, Bruce had found him double-checking all his equipment during a particularly boring stake-out. It was a good habit to get into, but one that had been lost on Dick before. Bruce’s inquiry about the sudden change of heart had been answered with a murmured lie. A small lie, but still a lie.

That was the fourth point. Dick did not usually lie. At least not as he had had over the last few days. Sure, he was a prankster at heart, but honest, serious questions usually yielded honest, serious answers. However, since the conference in Hawaii, all they had gotten him were deflections. Deflect. Deflect. Deflect. There were methods to circumvent that, of course, but the thought of interrogating his own Robin, his own son for all intents and purposes, did not sit well with Bruce. He had tried to enlist Alfred instead, but even his grandfatherly efforts had not born fruit. Bruce was at a loss.

The final straw was dinner.

It had been a week now, since the destruction of the Batmobile, and almost as long since the Policemen's Benevolent Association's Annual Law Enforcement Convention. A week in which Bruce had seen Dick stir his breakfast bowl of cereal until the fruit loops were all soggy and started to dissolve (‘major ewwww’, as Dick had once put it so eloquently). A week in which Bruce was certain the only reason Dick’s school lunch box was empty at the end of the day was that the school grounds were home to a healthy flock of birds. A week in which Dick had all but poked at his dinner for most of the time and eaten maybe half of it.

Tonight was no different, even though it should have been. Alfred had prepared Dick’s favorite, a kind of rabbit goulash with goat cheese, based on an old Romani recipe, and yet Dick was stabbing his fork at the little pieces of meat as if he was testing whether the rodent was truly dead or not. Alfred had noticed it, too, and for the last twelve minutes he had been shooting Bruce minute, short-lived glances that all but screamed ‘well, bloody say something already, sir’.

“Dick?”

 _Well, it is a start_ , although Bruce wanted to groan at his own awkwardness in the situation, as much as he wanted to scowl at Dick’s lazily raised eyebrows. How could it be he could talk criminal masterminds into confessing and frightened victims into serenity, yet when it came to talking to Dick it was as if his mind was trekking through a primordial sludge of unfinished words?

“Bruce?”

The tone was only slightly mocking, but it was enough to drag Bruce’s brain back into the here and now. He set down his own fork and knife, took a quick sip from his glass, which did nothing to fix the desert in his mouth, and straightened up in his seat. This was going to happen. Like pulling teeth. Better get through it quickly.

“You have been strangely... subdued, lately,” Bruce finally started, and he could see in Dick’s questioning look that the concept didn’t quite settle. “I couldn’t help but notice that – over the last week – you have talked less, exercised less, eaten less than ever before. Is something troubling you?”

There. He had done it. Bruce was kind of proud of himself and he would have given a little wink at Alfred had he believed to have even the hope of getting some confirmation in return. As it was, Bruce knew that he had barely met the minimum requirements for what Alfred would consider an important conversation. It was better not to ask.

To his right, Dick squirmed in his seat, before stabbing at the poor dead rabbit once more. Bruce reached over and held his hand gently, but with firm resolution.

“Please don’t do that, Dick. You’ll damage Alfred’s good china.”

“I’m sorry,” Dick muttered, before looking at Alfred and speaking up at least a little. “I didn’t mean to.”

“It’s quite alright, Master Richard,” Alfred answered with a quick nod, and Bruce took that as his cue to move on.

“Did something happen at school?” He considered it unlikely, but given that Dick’s school hours were the part of his day Bruce had least oversight over, it was a good place to start. “Is someone giving you trouble?”

“No, school’s fine.” That was not a lie. For a moment, Bruce even thought he could have heard the old Dick Grayson in there, but the sensation went as quickly as it came. “I’m fine, really.”

“Dick...”

 _Don’t judge. Don’t patronize. Don’t judge. Don’t patronize. Don’t raise your voice._ Bruce repeated the instructions over and over in his head, a mantra, a guideline for the conversation to come. Dick was thirteen years old, his ward, and his student. There was a natural power imbalance there which he really did not need to emphasize right now.

“I am not angry with you, Dick. I want you to understand that. I am merely worried. I worry, because I care. I promised to take good care of you, and I want to, but I can’t do it so well if you don’t help me. Please, Dick. Tell me what’s bothering you.”

“It’s nothing, Bruce.”

That _was_ a lie, and a nasty one at that, if the way Dick was eyeing his own glass of water was anything to go by. Bruce had to give him credit: he did suppress the instinctive urge to take a sip, to hide his insecurity behind a vacant gesture, and he kept his hands still, but the proof was still there in Dick’s eyes.

“I just haven’t been feeling very well lately,” Dick eventually continued. “I thought easing up on patrol and all that would help, but it didn’t. Not really.”

Bruce narrowed his eyes, searching for the truth behind the words. It was definitely there, somewhere. At least, none of what had just come out of Dick’s mouth had been a lie, although that was hardly praise given how vague it had all been. Clearly, Dick was in no mood to go into more detail without a push. A shove. A tiny little nudge. _Baby steps_ , Bruce reminded himself as he racked his brain for the relevant information on child psychology. _Very careful baby steps_.

“Well... let’s see...” Perhaps directing attention away from the boy and towards the situation would help. “I think it all started... about a week ago. Around the same time as the conference. Did something happen there?”

“Well, yeah, I got strapped to a bomb, Bruce,” Dick lobbed back at him, with a sudden vicious vigor that did not bode well. “Although let’s face it: it wasn’t the first time and it probably won’t be the last!” The assault on the dinner plate continued, although this time Dick was at least picking up the food and delegating it into his mouth. He barely chewed, swallowed hard, and finished his plate before Bruce could do so much as plan his next move. “I’m really tired, Bruce. Do you mind if I just go to bed?”

 _Do you mind or do I have to throw a tantrum?_ Bruce was no expert on children, but he recognized that one alright. A quick glance at Alfred’s displeased head shake confirmed that this battle was lost and so Bruce decided to cut his losses.

“Very well, Dick. Go get some sleep. We’ll talk tomorrow.”

He hoped. Given how quickly Dick disappeared from the dining hall, Bruce wasn’t sure if he was going to get so much as a sentence out of the boy, come morning. With a deep sigh, Bruce sank back into his chair and ran a hand through his hair.

“I am not ready for this.”

“No, Master Bruce, you are not.” Alfred started stacking the plates and cutlery with practiced ease, even though Bruce’s dinner was only half-finished. There was no point in waiting. His appetite had been spoiled and Alfred knew it. “Then again, there was never any doubt that you would not be.”

Bruce winced. That actually hurt. He felt it in his heart, stupid as that sounded. “I am surprised, Alfred. There is usually a lot more velvet around your steel.”

“It was not an insult, Master Bruce,” Alfred corrected in a tone that questioned how on Earth he could ever had thought it would be. “It was merely an observation. I do believe Mother Nature had a clear plan in mind when she designed human beings with a preparation time of nine months and two years of near unintelligible squealing. You bypassed all of that and straight up chose to take in a young boy you were neither prepared for nor very knowledgeable about. All things considered, I dare say you have been doing rather well.”

“Thank you, Alfred.” Bruce smiled as Alfred bowed and left to return the dishes to the kitchen. It was nice to hear he had not messed up completely.

Unfortunately, as far as Bruce, Batman, was concerned, anything below one-hundred percent was a failing grade.

***

Nightfall came quickly after dinner. On a normal day, Bruce would have used the time to go into the cave and work on his casefiles. He tried, but today his mind seemed to be everywhere and nowhere at once. Focus was a distant star. Efficiency was an alien concept. Half an hour into his research, Bruce locked the computer with a frustrated scowl and returned to the manor.

His mother’s diaries were where they had rested ever since her death, in the lower left drawer of the ivory dresser in the far right corner of the master bedroom. Bruce picked them up gently, searching for the ones that had been written in the last year. Eight was still quite different from thirteen, but if he could not draw any parenting clues from the very woman who had been a model of a mother to him, then what good were his chances?

He was halfway through a tale of how he had nearly ruined the reputation of the deputy mayor during one of the many galas in the manor, albeit in a rather charming in the innocence of a child kind of way, when a high-pitched scream pierced the silence of the house. It drove him out of his chair in an instant, the book suddenly forgotten on the table by the window as he rushed out of the room and raced down the hall. Dick’s room was not far, but it felt a mile away. The door was not heavy, but it felt like it was made out of solid stone.

Dick was sitting upright in his bed, his hair standing up in all directions, little spikes of black in the moonlight half-darkness of the room. He was shivering in spite of the warmth throughout the room. In between choked sobs, his breath came in frantic huffs.

“Dick!” Bruce was by his side in a second, caution be damned. Thankfully, Dick did not argue as Bruce wrapped one arm around him and drew him in. Instead, the boy moved his hands from his tear-streaked face to Bruce’s sweater, clinging to him like a limpet. “Hush, son...” He brought the other hand up into that dark mop of hair and ruffled it gently. “It’s alright, Dick. It was just a nightmare. Just a dream.”

“I saw them falling again...” Dick finally managed to choke out after a minute of solid sobbing, and Bruce’s heart broke all over again.

Of course it was _that_ nightmare. Dick had had it so many times... way too many times, but Bruce knew it would never go away. It would become less frequent as time went on, but it would never go away for good and it would never lose its horror. Bruce knew.

Because Mary and John were Dick’s Martha and Thomas. Because the sound of a heavy thud was Dick’s thunderous gunshot. Because sand that swiftly grew crimson was Dick’s pearls in blood.

It would never go away. It would never stop being horrible.

“It’s not your fault, Dick.” He knew that this was where it would be headed next. Bruce had been there. Many, many times... “There was nothing you could have done.”

“I...” Dick choked, then buried his face deeper into Bruce’s sweater. “I should have known he’d cut the line, Bruce... I should have known... the line...”

“Dick, it wasn’t you who—“

The realization hit him with the force of a sledgehammer, and Bruce felt sick to his stomach. He wanted to retch. He wanted to take that sledgehammer that was lodged in his gut and take it to his own head. How could he have been so _dense_? How did he not see it before?

 _“Cut the tow line”_ , Bruce heard himself growl, aggressive and careless, as the scene replayed in his head.

 _“WHAT?”_ Dick had shouted, but in hindsight, he seemed so frightened. So small.

 _“Do not argue with me. Cut the line.”_ Harsh. Unforgiving. No care for the living. No respect for the dead.

The sharp snap and swish as the line was cut. The sudden punch as gravity took hold and dragged them both down to the ground without mercy.

 _“For the record, I wasn’t arguing with you. I just wanted to make sure if I was going to die, I heard you correctly.”_ _I just wanted to make sure that if we both die here, it was your fault, not mine._

“Dear God, Dick...” Bruce hugged him closer as the tears started welling up in the corners of his own eyes. “I am so sorry. So very sorry! I should never have said that. I should never have asked you... not for that.”

Dick sniffed briefly. His voice sounded like broken glass. “It was the right call, Bruce.”

“Then I should have done it myself,” Bruce insisted. “I shouldn’t have asked that... That’s as if someone had given me a gun and...” He didn’t even want to finish the thought. It made him feel sick. It made him feel dirty. It made him feel worthless. It made him feel as he were digging up his parents’ corpses and walking all over them. “I will never ever ask you to cut a line again, I promise.”

It took a minute, but at last, Bruce managed to pry himself loose from the thirteen-year-old clinging to him. Dick’s azure eyes were wide and wet, glassy with tears and fatigue. Bruce cupped his cheeks gently and made him focus.

“I am so sorry, Dick. This is my fault, not yours, and I promise it won’t happen again.” Dick nodded slowly. The sobs had stopped and so had most of the tears, but the pain was still there. Bruce grabbed a tissue from the box on the nightstand and started wiping off the boy’s cheeks gently, only for Dick to grab another and blow his nose loudly. Despite the gravity of the situation, Bruce felt a smile tug at the corners of his lips. “Have you been having nightmares every night since?”

Dick seemed to ponder that for a minute. Finally, he curled up the tissue, threw it into the nearby bin, and started twiddling his thumbs in his lap. _That_ was typical Dick Grayson and the sight was a blessing to Bruce’s eyes.

“They weren’t all as bad as this one.”

Bruce felt the stab, even though it was perfectly unintentional. Dick was beyond the point of caring. He was too tired and Bruce could hardly blame him.

“I’m sorry, Dick. I truly am. Please forgive me...”

“There’s nothing to forgive, Bruce.” Dick drew up his knees and wrapped his arms around them. On the skin of his forearms, goose bumps stood out in bitter clarity. “You made the right call and we didn’t die. That’s what matters, right?”

“Yes,” Bruce managed over the deep breath he finally let go off. “That’s what really matters, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t do wrong by you. And I would like to make it up to you.”

He wasn’t exactly sure where that last sentence had come from, but the curiosity spiking in Dick’s eyes was worth it. It suited him much better than the fatigue and sadness he had worn all week, and now that Bruce knew that this was exactly what it was – deepest grief – he wanted to slap himself. It had been painfully obvious. He had not seen the forest for the trees.

“What do you have in mind?”

Bruce shrugged. “I don’t know, Dick. What did your parents usually do when you had nightmares?”

“They read to me,” the nostalgia was there in an instance, softening his voice and bringing a hint of a smile to the boy’s face. “Robin Hood was always my favorite. Mom would read me from that one all the time.”

Bruce smiled, patted him on the shoulder, and turned to the bookshelf. All the classics were there, but they were mostly untouched. Finding Robin Hood was easy. Its battered old cover was easy to make out and confirmed Dick’s story. Bruce picked it up with the same tender care he had shown Martha’s diaries and opened the first page. The border was littered with annotations for intonation and emphasis, and Bruce could all but see the scene unfold in front of himself as he turned around: Dick, tucked snuggly into his sheets, the warm glow of soft lamp light around him, his mother, sitting in the chair by his side, embellishing the tale and bringing it to life as any good actor would.

Most of it was an illusion, of course, but one thing was the same: Dick had tucked himself back into his bed and was eyeing him with a mix of nostalgia and expectation.

Bruce drew up a chair, sat down, and started reading.


End file.
